Kona II Brume Change Evaluation

Kona II Brume is the sequel and follow-up to the story established in 2016 ‘Kona’ by Canadian developer ‘Parabole’.

It advised the story of famend personal detective Carl Faubert who arrived in Nineteen Seventies northern Canada, employed by the illustrious William Hamilton (a wealthy industrialist and head of the Hamilton mining company).

Nevertheless, issues aren’t in any respect what they appear with an intense freak snowstorm and William Hamilton being discovered murdered. The sport helps you to discover the setting of Northern Canada attempting to unravel the thriller of Hamilton, coupled with a sequence of additional killings by some supernatural pressure.

It was a psychological first-person journey thriller, advised via actions and a voice-over narration telling us Carl’s interior ideas. It additionally had the aspect of survival to it, battling the subzero temperatures by discovering wooden and beginning fires to maintain heat. However it was additionally the native wildlife that will come as a menace to Carl’s survival. Wolves prowled about attacking you whenever you’d least count on it.

It was a enjoyable and intriguing recreation. So it got here as a pleasant shock to see a sequel introduced that will proceed Carl’s story.

So let’s delve proper in and see how Kona II Brume differs from its predecessor and the way it handles the ‘Nintendo Change’.

‘Kona II Brume’ picks up actually the place ‘Kona’ left issues in Northern Quebec Canada. Carl was working for his life while being pursued by the mysterious supernatural entity. He then hops onto a motor-powered boat to flee onto the lake away from it and head in the direction of civilization.

We decide up Carl on the boat in Lake Mishaau as he stumbles throughout some empty and deserted boats earlier than being shot at and having to duck into the lake to swim for canopy. You then stagger ashore, stumbling in the direction of the sunshine of an deserted cabin and begin a fireplace to get your self heat. From right here you heal up, have a relaxation, collect provides after which make your strategy to Hamilton’s mansion.

The mansion itself takes up a great portion of the sport. It’s huge, it’s huge and it’s filled with secrets and techniques to uncover. I took a whole lot of time exploring each room to ensure I had sufficient provides and that I hadn’t missed something. Additionally it is right here that you simply be taught extra about Hamilton and his life and enterprise dealings. You additionally see first-hand that one thing horrific occurred right here with a slew of useless our bodies (additionally some frozen) blood in all places and irregular harm to the house of the tycoon that might solely be attributable to one thing massive and monstrous.

You additionally expertise some hallucinogenic sequences, a bit like within the first recreation, the place phantom wolves begin to assault you. It’s residual chaos from no matter tore via the house in its path of destruction.

From the Mansion you make your manner again over the lake and past to seek out survivors. You meet a small forged of characters from right here and also you even find yourself at Hamilton’s mining facility itself to discover a secret underground laboratory. It’s an intriguing story made all that extra mysterious and intense by the good narrative voice-over guiding you alongside your journey. The narration has modified palms between video games, with Forrest Rainier voicing the primary recreation and Adam Gold voicing the second.

I do choose Gold’s voice because it sounds extra like a narration you’d right here in an audible audiobook. It has extra life and character to it whereas the previous felt a bit bland at occasions.

While on the subject of voice-over I did need to level out one thing that bugged me a bit. You might have the choice to modify between English voice-over and Canadian French. Nevertheless, you don’t have the identical choice with the international voice appearing of the characters you meet all through Kona II Brume. You do have subtitles translating the speech for you, nevertheless, the characters speak so quick that I discovered myself at occasions stumbling to maintain up and lacking traces of dialogue main me to must both re-select the speech choice (if in a dialog) or guess what was occurring.

I get this can be a budgetary factor solely having one set of voice actors native to the sport setting, however we reside in an age of accessibility now and it ought to be commonplace to have the ability to change the audio language to at least one most popular by the participant. It appears a bit lazy.

Now onto efficiency

‘Kona II Brume’ is a really handsome recreation on next-gen consoles, nevertheless it runs surprisingly nicely on the ‘Nintendo Change’. One disadvantage although is the load occasions. It’s most noticeable (for instance) when shifting between the inside and exterior of the Hamilton mansion. On ‘next-gen’ consoles the change is nearly seamless, but on ‘Change’ you might be met with a loading display screen that at occasions can take as much as 15-30 seconds. It’s a little bit of a disadvantage and takes you out of the immersion.

There are different efficiency points current as nicely. The body fee isn’t all the time per it dropping in closely populated areas. Textures generally take an irregular period of time to pop in leaving a easy plasticine-looking mess of their place. Character fashions look a bit clunky in locations and look extra like mannequins than folks. I’ve skilled some occasional lag and moments the place the sport freezes too, nevertheless, it has by no means induced Kona II Brume to crash on me.

That being mentioned, should you look previous these points Kona II Brume nonetheless appears to be like and performs nicely on each handheld mode and in docked mode. It’s no ‘Alien: Isolation’ port, nevertheless it’s shut.

Total ‘Kona II Brume’ is an effective continuation of the story arrange within the first recreation, nevertheless, it doesn’t actually convey something completely different to the desk. Sure, it’s a enjoyable thriller journey wrapped into a lightweight survival recreation, however in addition to that, it doesn’t have a lot else so as to add to it that’s new.

Whereas Kona II Brume does run nicely on the ‘Change’ and appears good to match, the efficiency points make it miles other than its ‘next-gen’ counterpart.

It’s a great recreation, however not one to cry out about.